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Ovation guitar factory in Connecticut to close

Dave Collins, Associated Press;
11:05 p.m. CDT April 23, 2014

Host Bobby Bare, left, has Glen Campbell, and Jimmy Webb together at the piano during a taping of the Bobby Bare & Friends show at Bullet studio on Music Row March 21, 1984.
(Photo:
File / The Tennessean
)

An Ovation guitar factory in the western Connecticut hills that produced instruments for music legends from Paul Simon to Cat Stevens to Glen Campbell will be closing in June after 47 years and production of the Ovation line in the United States will stop, the manufacturer’s parent company told the shop’s workers this week.

One former factory worker called it “the end of an iconic American brand.”

Fender Musical Instruments Corp., based in Scottsdale, Ariz., and maker of the iconic Stratocaster electric guitar, said in an announcement Tuesday that it was ceasing domestic production of Ovation guitars and closing the New Hartford factory, citing “current market conditions and insufficient volume levels.” The company also said it is consolidating production of U.S.-made acoustic instruments.

Ovations will continue to be manufactured outside the U.S., Fender spokesman Jason Farrell said Wednesday. He said Fender also builds Ovations in China, South Korea and Indonesia.

“We are committed to providing the same high quality musical instruments our artists, consumers and customers expect and demand, and will continue to support the brands that are currently being produced in New Hartford,” Richard McDonald, senior vice president of Fender, said in a statement.

The factory also has been making Fender and Guild guitars since Fender bought Ovation’s owner, Bloomfield, Conn.-based Kaman Music Corp., in 2007.

The factory closing was first reported by the Republican-American newspaper of Waterbury, Conn.

Richard Hall of Winsted, who worked for Kaman and Ovation for three decades including 18 years at the New Hartford plant, told the newspaper that Ovation made the first acoustic guitar that could be plugged in to an amplifier and the company had 66 percent of the acoustic market in the U.S. in the early 1990s.

“It’s the end of an iconic American brand,” Hall said. “In the 1970s and ’80s, just about every big touring band was playing Ovation.”